A conventional horizontal rotary compressor is configured such that refrigerant which has been drawn through a suction port of each rotary compression element into a lower pressure chamber side of the cylinder, and compressed by the operations of rollers and a vane, and is discharged from a high pressure chamber side of a cylinder into a hermetic shell case through a discharge port and a discharge silencer chamber, then flows into an external radiator and the like. Further, a bottom portion of the hermetic shell case serves as an oil reservoir and oil is drawn up from oil reservoir by an oil pump (oil supply means) attached to the opposite side of the electric element of each rotary compression element and is supplied to each rotary compression element to prevent abrasion of each rotary compression element.
With the horizontal rotary compressor having such an arrangement, although oil which is mixed with a refrigerant compressed by each rotary compression element is discharged into the hermetic shell case together with the refrigerant, the refrigerant is once discharged toward the electric element of the cylinder so as to facilitate separation of oil from the refrigerant and it is also discharged outside the hermetic shell case through oil pump side. Accordingly, oil is reserved not only in oil pump side but also in the electric element side, causing a problem that oil is not smoothly drawn if an oil level in oil pump is lowered.
Accordingly, the conventional horizontal rotary compressor has been contrived such that a baffle plate is disposed in the electric element side of the rotary compression element and the interior of the hermetic shell case is partitioned into the electric element side and the rotary compression element and an oil pump side so that a difference in pressure occurs therebetween, wherein the pressure inside the hermetic shell case is set such that the pressure at the side of the each rotary compression element and oil pump side is lower than that at the electric element side so as to raise oil level in oil pump side.
Since the baffle plate provided in the conventional horizontal rotary compressor has a given interval between the substantially peripheral portion thereof and the inner surface of the hermetic shell case so that the difference in pressure occurs therebetween, accordingly, if the interval therebetween is large, it causes a problem that the difference in pressure therebetween does not occur efficiently. On the other hand, if the interval therebetween is narrowed, the moving of the refrigerant and oil inside the hermetic shell case is inhibited.